Formula Reference
The effective rate is the number that goes in the bid
A schedule does not change the wage. It changes what an average hour of that schedule costs, and that average is what a unit price has to carry. Push a crew from 5×8 to 5×10 at a burdened $48 an hour and the ten hours past 40 are paid at time and a half, so a worker's week costs $2,640 instead of $1,920 — but you also bought fifty hours instead of forty. Divide one by the other and the effective rate is $52.80, ten per cent above straight time. The six-day extended week buys 58 hours at an effective $55.45, up 15.5 per cent. The percentage is the transferable number; the weekly total is not.
What federal law actually requires
The Fair Labor Standards Act sets one rule. 29 U.S.C. 207(a)(1) requires not less than one and a half times the regular rate for hours worked over 40 in a workweek, and 29 CFR 778.101 states the same threshold. Most of what people believe beyond that is contract rather than statute. 29 CFR 778.102 is explicit that the Act "does not generally require… that an employee be paid overtime compensation for hours in excess of eight per day, or for work on Saturdays, Sundays, holidays or regular days of rest", and the Department of Labor repeats it in Fact Sheet #23.
Two consequences bite on a jobsite. The workweek is a fixed, regularly recurring period of 168 hours (778.105) and each one stands alone (778.104), so 30 hours one week and 50 the next is ten hours of overtime, not an average of forty. And all hours worked in the week are totalled (778.103) — Saturday is not a separate bucket sitting outside the count. The WHD fact sheet written for this trade, Fact Sheet #1: The Construction Industry Under the FLSA, adds the version that catches contractors out: paying overtime only after 80 hours in a bi-weekly pay period is illegal.
Where state law takes over
778.102 also preserves any obligation "imposed by other Federal or State law", and a number of states impose more. California is the one this page models. Labor Code section 510(a) requires time and a half over eight hours in a workday up to twelve, double time past twelve, time and a half for the first eight hours of a seventh consecutive day and double time beyond eight on that day — all on top of the weekly 40-hour rule. Choosing California turns a four-day, ten-hour week into eight overtime hours that federal law would not create at all.
One caveat the calculator cannot see for you: section 510 does not apply to an alternative workweek schedule properly adopted under section 511, which is how a great many California employers run 4×10s with no daily overtime. If yours has adopted one, the California figure for the compressed schedule is too high. If you work under neither body of law, check your own state labour department before relying on either setting.
Premiums credit, they do not stack
A Saturday premium landing on an hour that is already statutory overtime does not cost you three times the rate. Under section 7(h) of the Act, extra compensation for work on a special day, at a premium of at least time and a half, may be credited toward the overtime the statute requires rather than added to it — 29 CFR 778.201(c) and 778.203. The regulation works it through at 778.205: 56 hours at a $12 rate with $18 paid on Sunday and on a holiday comes to $768, which is precisely what the statute demands for forty straight hours and sixteen over. So the Saturday and Sunday selectors here describe your agreement, not the law, and an hour is paid at the highest single multiplier that reaches it.
What this output is, and what it must not be used for
It is an estimating rate. It is not payroll, it is not a paycheck, and it is not legal advice. It assumes one rate across the crew, a workweek that lines up with the schedule shown, and no unrecorded time. It also applies the premium to a fully burdened rate, and that overstates the premium by more than a little. Overtime is owed on the regular rate of pay, and three parts of burden do not follow it: fixed-dollar benefits, which are the same whichever hour you work; unemployment taxes, once the wage base is reached; and workers' compensation, where NCCI's Basic Manual excludes the excess portion of overtime pay from the payroll premium is computed on in most states. On a $48 burdened rate made of a $30 wage and $18 of burden, of which about $11.50 is fixed per-hour fringe, an overtime hour costs nearer $63 than the $72 shown — so a 5×10 week reads about $52.80 an hour here against roughly $51, and the headline increase reads about 10% against roughly 6%. The error is in the safe direction for the worker and the wrong one for your margin. If the percentage is going into a bid, split wage from burden and apply the premium to the wage. It carries no allowance for the productivity loss that comes with sustained overtime, because the published curves for that sit behind association memberships we cannot read, so no percentage is offered here rather than a borrowed one. Confirm the figures against your own payroll before they become wages, and with counsel before they become a position.
Frequently asked questions
Under federal law, total every hour the employee actually worked in the workweek and subtract 40; the remainder is overtime, whatever day of the week it fell on. The workweek is a fixed, recurring period of seven consecutive 24-hour days, and each one stands alone, so hours cannot be averaged across two weeks. Several states add their own rules on top — California counts hours over eight in a day as well — so check the law where the work is performed. This is an estimating calculation, not payroll: confirm the hours against your own time records before anyone is paid from them.
Not because they are Saturdays. The Fair Labor Standards Act does not require overtime for work on Saturdays, Sundays, holidays or regular days of rest as such; it requires overtime for hours over 40 in the workweek. Saturday hours do count toward that 40, so on a six-day week they usually are overtime — just for the hours, not for the day. A Saturday premium in a union agreement or company policy is a separate promise the employer has made, and where that premium is at least time and a half it is credited toward the overtime the Act requires rather than paid on top of it.
It is an alternative that lets an employer use a 14-day period instead of a workweek, paying overtime for hours over eight in a day and over 80 in the fortnight. It is not available in construction. Section 7(j) of the Fair Labor Standards Act and 29 CFR 778.601 confine it to hospitals and residential care establishments, and it also requires an agreement reached with the employee before the work is performed. The Department of Labor's construction fact sheet states plainly that paying overtime only after 80 hours in a bi-weekly pay period is illegal, because each workweek must stand alone.
Yes, and California adds more. Labor Code section 510(a) requires one and a half times the regular rate for hours over 40 in a workweek, for hours over eight and up to twelve in a workday, and for the first eight hours of a seventh consecutive day; and double time for hours over twelve in a day or over eight on that seventh day. The weekly count runs on straight-time hours, so an hour already paid as daily overtime is not counted twice. An alternative workweek schedule properly adopted under section 511 is the main exception, and it is how many employers run four ten-hour days without daily overtime.
Federal overtime law on this page is quoted from the statute at 29 U.S.C. 207 and from the Wage and Hour Division's interpretive regulations at 29 CFR Part 778, with the Department of Labor's Fact Sheet #1 (construction) and Fact Sheet #23 (overtime pay). California rules come from Labor Code section 510 and the Labor Commissioner's overtime page. Wage and premium levels are yours to enter; nothing on this page assumes a prevailing wage, and work on federally funded projects carries separate Davis-Bacon and Contract Work Hours obligations that are outside what this calculator covers.